The Arsenal Women defeated Reading 6-0 with a Blackstenius hat-trick and the welcome return of Leah Williamson, capped with an assist.
Jonas Eidevall went for full rotation with McCabe, Foord, and Pelova the only players to retain their places in the starting XI. As you’d expect in a Continental Cup tie, with the whole squad being used to manage loads properly.
Kim Little returned to the team after missing four games due to injury and played her 300th match. It was only a few years ago back in 2008 that she turned up unannounced one Sunday in March at a Leeds away game.
Little is a legend at the club, the same as Faye White, Rachel Yankey, Emma Byrne, or Kelly Smith. Her skill level is so high that the only male player that can be compared to her is Zinedine Zidane, in my opinion.
It was also nice to see Leah Williamson come back from her ACL injury and she got a very warm reception by the crowd.
She is likely to be key in the title race as she offers so much defensively, offensively and it terms of leadership on the pitch. Her return to full fitness is great news, like it was with Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema.
Arsenal won Group D with 11 points, and will therefore play in the quarter finals next month.
The other group winners are Manchester City, London City Lionesses, and Brighton and Hove Albion, who join Arsenal and Chelsea in the quarter-finals.
Aston Villa won their group by defeating Sunderland 7-0 but unfortunately for them, they subbed in Noëlle Maritz at half-time. As per the regulations below, this was not allowed as Maritz is cup-tied having played earlier for Arsenal in the competition.
Therefore the Group A ranking will end up in a different way than it is now.
The matter will go to an Independent Tribunal and if we look at 8.14.2, it looks like Sunderland will be awarded the game.
The rules do not mention anything about the goals scored in the game, which is a problem here as the best two runner-ups are ranked on points per game first and then by goal difference per game.
Should Sunderland be awarded the game, they would win the group with ten points and Villa would finish runner-up with nine points and 2.25 points per game.
The Group B runners-up are Manchester United with nine points, 2.25 points per game. Group C runners-up are Crystal Palace with four points and 1.33 per game and are therefore eliminated. The Group E runners-up are Charlton with three points and one point per game so they are out too.
The Group D runners-up will be decided tonight. Southampton are at home to Spurs. Spurs have seven points and Southampton five points.
A Spurs outright win would put them on ten points and overtaking Manchester United in the runner-up ranking and putting them through.
Should Spurs win the game on a penalty shoot-out, if the score is level at full-time, they would have nine points, potentially the same as Aston Villa and Manchester United. Then it would go to the goal difference per game.
We would therefore have United on 2.25 GD per game, Spurs would be on 2.25 GD per game and Aston Villa on 5.75 GD per game at the moment. Should the 7-0 scoreline be removed Villa would go down to 4.00 per game and still top the runner-up table.
Should Spurs and United end up with the same 2.25 points per game and same 2.25 goal difference per game, it would go then to the goals scored per game and United have 12 while Spurs have 12. Any score draw coupled with the penalty shoot-out would send them through.
Obviously, we will have to wait until the FA makes a decision on Villa to see who will be the eighth team making it to the quarter finals.